System and method using a simplified xml format for real-time content publication   

Abstract: A system and method for delivering content in real-time using advanced messaging technology that reduces the risk of content being lost or dropped in transmission. The system and method utilize a custom, simplified XML format to deliver real-time textual, numeric, and metadata content directly to subscribers. The XML tag set specifies all of the information needed to package, process, and distribute real-time content messages and includes an advanced tagging structure that allows granular content customization. Messages are built on the fly using multi-channel data processing techniques. The XML delivery system and method offers an array of real-time market-specific page-based “Alert” services and aggregated newswires with accompanying real-time numeric data feeds. These feeds contain proprietary assessments and other price data across a broad spectrum of global and regional commodity markets, including oil, petrochemicals, metals, electric power, natural gas, coal, and risk.

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/369,490, filed Jul. 30, 2010, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to systems and methods of distributing information items, or content, to channel partners. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a system and method of receiving, packaging, and delivering XML market data to a plurality of subscribers in real-time.

Electronic content publication systems are used to publish digital information items to a plurality of subscribing entities. The publication systems provide information items to multiple, physically separate computerized devices over one or more digital computer networks. These information items may include textual, numeric, or other forms of data, such as, stock quotes, financial data, weather reports, news items, etc. These information, or content, publication systems may be used to disseminate information from a variety of electronic content providers to a variety of subscribing entities (subscribers, vendors, partners), via the interne or other communications networks.

Industry-standard price assessments are a critical element of short- and long-term commodities contracts worldwide. This information may be published in textual form along with news, market commentary, fundamental data and other useful content. Several product and delivery vehicles may be utilized, such as real-time page-based “Alert” services, as well as end-of-day newswires/newsletters, traditional print newsletters covering different industry segments, or network based content publication services.

There are a number of challenges that content publication systems must overcome. For example, incoming data must be formatted, in some instances combined, and then associated with the appropriate subscribers entitled to receive that data (known as “packaging” the data). With certain types of data it is critical that each subscriber receive the same data at substantially the same time. Additionally, content publication systems must be able to recognize and deal with failures in information delivery. Furthermore, subscribers do not use the data in the same ways or run the same types of platforms making establishing a standardized data format difficult.

Existing systems store incoming data for later retrieval and dissemination. At certain intervals, the data is retrieved, associated with the appropriate subscribers, and delivered to subscribers. However, existing systems do not receive multiple types of data and package and distribute it in real-time, i.e., package and distribute a message in response to the receipt of a input data massage. Further, in existing systems, critical market data may be lost or dropped before being delivered to subscribers, due to, for example, network errors or problems with subscribers\' servers. In the event that market data cannot be delivered to a subscriber, existing systems do not have the capability to preserve the data until it can be delivered.

Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved system and method for reliably delivering market data to a plurality of subscribers in real-time.

SUMMARY

Aspects of the present invention relate to systems and methods for electronically distributing news, price information, and market data over the internet or other communications network in a simplified, extensible markup language (XML) format to a plurality of subscribers.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a system is configured to receive textual and numeric content from at least one source, package the content for delivery to at least one of a plurality of subscribing entities, and publish or otherwise deliver the content via the internet or other communications network. Subscribing entities may include, for example, individual or corporate subscribers, partners, customers, news or information vendors, or any third party information recipient. Numeric content may include numerical analysis such as assessments and other data. For instance, numerical content may include closing market prices and fundamental statistical data as well as time-series data for charting or graphing. Textual content may include news, articles, market commentary, transactions, “market heard” pages, statistics tables, and proprietary assessment and fundamentals tables.

Preferably, the system comprises one or more computers configured to use a simplified XML tag set to deliver real-time textual and numeric content directly to subscribers in accordance with a real-time permissioning system. This custom tag set specifies all of the information needed to process, package, and distribute real-time content messages and includes an advanced tagging structure that allows granular content customization.

Embodiments of the present invention offer flexible, reliable and fast delivery of real-time content, including page-based “Alert” services, selected newswires, and proprietary real-time numeric data. These features may be accomplished by combining enterprise messaging technology with an XML message schema. According to one aspect of the invention, data is normalized through the use of at least one filter or flow process and delivered in a standardized format with enough flexibility to allow for future changes. The simple, clean message format of the present invention improves timeliness and reduces processing errors over legacy formats and guarantees messaging that reduces the risk of content being lost or dropped in transmission.

According to aspects of the present invention, the system and method process and package messages according to Execution Groups, which contain named groupings of message flows. A message flow may be understood as a sequence of nodes, which define the processing steps run by the delivery system of the present invention when an input message is received. For example, a node can represent the set of actions executed by a computer program or processor that define a processing step.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, enterprise customers can directly ingest content into their workflow. Furthermore, the invention allows content to be streamed that has traditionally not been delivered by real-time platforms, thereby creating a single consolidated distribution platform for current and future content.

The present invention provides a real-time content distribution solution using advanced messaging technology that reduces the risk of content being lost or dropped in transmission.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an array of real-time market-specific page-based “Alert” services and aggregated newswires with accompanying real-time numeric data feeds are provided. These feeds contain proprietary assessments and other price data across a broad spectrum of global and regional commodity markets, including oil, petrochemicals, metals, electric power, natural gas, coal, and risk. This content may be delivered using one of three basic XML message formats—textual, numeric or metadata. Additional embodiments of the present invention include metadata and numeric analytics data feeds that include real-time and historic market data. These bulk data feeds provide customers greater flexibility on how and where to leverage the analytics content.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the source information comes from a content publication or generation system, which is used to publish information related to a wide range of markets. The source information is in a standardized format, typically XML 1.0, with a pre-defined set of tags. This information is routed to a delivery system over a communications network, such as an IP network via an IP based messaging protocol, then transformed and processed using a defined set of rules implemented in a rule based engine called a Transform Publish Filter (TPF). The delivery system may then distribute packaged content, or authorize the publication of content messages, based upon a set of distribution rules, such as a subscription permissioning system. For instance, message data, in a second format, usually XML 2.0, is forwarded to the Subscriber hosts over an IP network using the messaging protocol.

The design of the delivery system provides for ‘end to end’ global delivery, by leveraging standard messaging to deliver content via public networks. The message flow system leverages the messaging system to deliver the feed either over the public network or over a private network.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the TPF rule engine allows real-time application of textual and numeric Business Rules and changes. The message flow architecture allows for maintaining subscription details in real time by processing a permission file as designed by a fulfillment system. For example, a Load Permission File flow can process the permission file in real time whenever there is a change in the incoming permission file by processing the details and updating the database. The fulfillment system may be any external application that supplies a permission file, which may contain, for example, individual subscriber entitlement and package information. This information may be used by the TPF to permission, package, and distribute content in real-time.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the XML structure allows flexibility and agility to customize content in real-time. The message flow architecture allows for enabling or disabling certain tags for a specific partner and for customizing the content to different partners based on their subscription or preference information.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an XML delivery system allows for a complete audit trail, logging, and alert capability in real-time, end to end, up to the delivery point to the end user. For instance, a Send To Audit flow can capture the audit information and a Perfmon results flow can capture the performance details.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, content is prioritized for optimal delivery. Different types of messages can be assigned different priorities by the message flow allowing the system to deliver the messages on specified criteria, such as message type or content, rather than in a “first in, first out” format. For example, Price or Numeric messages may be assigned a higher priority than Textual messages so that in the event that two messages are simultaneously being processed, the price or numeric message could be delivered first.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the XML structure described herein can function as an industry standard for commodity news and market data distribution. As will be described in greater detail below, the Document Type Definition (DTD) for the XML structure is unique, and structured to capture the necessary commodity news and market data.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, compliance with the XML Standard may be enforced in real-time. The message flow can be configured to raise an exception if an XML message is not in accordance with XML standards. For example, an exception would be raised if an XML message were ill-formed XML without proper closing tags.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, metadata is distributed at a desired frequency with all attributes necessary for data ingestion. A metadata flow publishes the price metadata as and when necessary. For example, metadata could be sent once a week or on a demand/need basis.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, multiple data types can be processed simultaneously and yet maintain the order of sequence. Specifically, the message flow can process multiple data types in parallel, such as textual, price, and metadata, by filtering the incoming message type and routing them to their associated flows. A dedicated flow, such as a Check Content type flow, can accommodate this functionality.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the tag value code structure design and TPF rule engine together allow for content bundling in real-time. The content delivered to a subscriber can be customized with the ability to bundle only relevant information intended for a particular subscriber instead of sending all the content to all the subscribers. For instance, exemplary nodes “Build Textual data” and “Build Price data” can be configured to check the permissioning for each subscriber and identify the list of subscribers who would get the message. The nodes can also build the messages individually using the <sendTo> tag, with different values, such as: <sendTo>vendor1</sendTo>, <sendTo>vendor2</vendor2>, and <sendTo>vendor3</vendor3>, etc.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form part of the specification, illustrate various embodiments of the present invention and, together with the description, further serve to explain the principles of the invention and to enable a person skilled in the pertinent art to make and use the invention. In the drawings, like reference numbers indicate identical or functionally similar elements.

FIG. 1 is a logical diagram showing the transformation and publication of content to various partners according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the content feed process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an exemplary high-level architecture according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the check content type process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the error handler process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the load permission file process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the load perfmon results process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing the send to audit process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing the load audit data log process flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the structure of an exemplary XML element hierarchy according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is an XML Simple Tag Element Hierarchy Diagram in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is an XML Textual Element Hierarchy Diagram in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is an XML Numeric Element Hierarchy Diagram in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 14 is an XML Metadata Element Hierarchy Diagram in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a logical network diagram of a generalized content publication system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a logical diagram of an XML delivery system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 17 is a logical diagram of the Execution Groups in an XML delivery system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 18 is a logical diagram of a ProcessEWSFeed Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a logical diagram of a TextualFlow Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 20 is a logical diagram of a SubscriberProcessing Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 21 is a logical diagram of a NumericFlow Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 22 is a logical diagram of a NumericSubscriberProcessing Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 23 is a logical diagram of a MetaDataFlow Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 24 is a logical diagram of a LoadPartner2QueuesMapping Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 25 is a logical diagram of a LoadPartnerFilteringMapping Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 26 is a logical diagram of a LoadSubscriberQMapping Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 27 is a logical diagram of a LoadXMLDDTimeZoneMapping Message Flow in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 28 is an illustration of exemplary price output messages in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 29 is an illustration of exemplary news story output messages in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In accordance with the present invention, the integration of multiple data types is supported. Multiple unique sets of numeric and textual data may be distributed using a similar structure but different tag sets.

For example, News & Pricing data contains assessments and other data such as closing market prices and fundamental statistical data and is typically distributed using a numeric message format. Use of a numeric message format can support, for example, storage of time-series data for charting, analysis, or other purposes.

Textual report messages may come in a variety of page sizes to support the distribution of news, market commentary, transactions, and proprietary assessment and fundamentals tables that are pertinent to a defined market. For legacy distribution requirements, a variable length format is used to distribute news articles, market commentary, and legacy newswires, and a fixed length format for proprietary assessment tables, statistical tables, and transaction or “market heard” pages.

In accordance with the present invention, at least two unique sets of metadata messages can be distributed and associated with these data types. For instance, a first for News & Pricing data and a second for Analytics data. Both message types include permissioning information along with symbol definitions and attributes that are vital to ingesting data. The metadata for Analytics content provides additional information for its associated numeric messages.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 1, a rule-based engine known as a Transform Publish Filter engine (TPF) 101 is provided. The TPF may be implemented on one or more computers via, for instance, algorithms comprising computer-executable instructions stored on non-transitory computer-readable media. The TPF functions to process, transform and enrich different types of content, including numerical and textual data. Content is received from a content integration source 103 via a messaging server 105. Once the data has been transformed and processed by the TPF 101, the content is distributed to a plurality of vendors or partners 107 via a messaging server 109.

The TPF 101 applies as series of rules in Process Flow 111 when receiving, transforming, and publishing or otherwise distributing messages. For example, the TPF 101 may be configured to support multiple incoming message types and identify incoming message types through a dedicated flow which, for example, distinguishes between and appropriately routes textual, numeric, and meta data to appropriate nodes. Further, a flow of the TPF may set the message priority for delivery, transform the message to a Standard XML format, and format vendor specific content before delivery. Further, the TPF may include a flow to apply permission rules. For instance, the applied permission rules may be based on a received permission message. Moreover, the TPF can be configured through a series of flows to dynamically update the permission rules whenever there is a new permission message available, log errors, exceptions, and/or un-subscribed messages, and alert or communicate information to a support team.

Textual and numeric data from a content source are sent to the feed queue on a TPF server. The TPF server may include a number of execution groups. According to an embodiment of the present invention, there are four execution groups in the TPF engine.

The first, ExecutionGroup1, handles all application messages. Once the message type is identified, for instance as textual, numeric, or metadata, the message is routed to the corresponding node in the Process Flow 111, with specific tags determining its fulfillment criteria (e.g., information regarding how the data should be packaged and delivered). If there are any errors in the XML tag structure, the messages are sent to the error queue and no further processing is done. If the particular item is subscribed to by any partner 107, individual messages are created for each partner with the subscribed elements in a corresponding XML message. Once all the fulfillment details are identified and mapped, the individual messages for those partners are sent to a queue or distribution list based on these criteria.

The second, ExecutionGroup2, is directed to analytics data processing. Analytics data may arrive via drive mapping as a CSV file, for example. These files are sent to a feed queue and the message flow picks up those messages. Message definitions and sets in the flow are converted into an XML message for the partners. Due to the large amount of data, multiple flows may be used for rapid processing. Several message flow instances are initiated.

The third, ExecutionGroup3, allows purging of the messages on the Partner queues if the messages are not being read. This is a simple execution group containing, for example, purge flows for the various partners 107.

Finally, ExecutionGroup4, controls the permissions, fulfillment, audit tools, and email utilities for exception handling. This execution group contains miscellaneous utilities such as Auditing, Email Alerts, and Fulfillment flows. Permissioning is used to identify partner subscriptions to each data set (News & Pricing, Analytics, etc.). A fulfillment system generates a permission file and sends the file to a permission feed queue. This message is read by the permission flow and data is refreshed in a database instance in the TPF engine. This data is used, for example, by an Exchange Web Services (EWS) flow to map partners to each incoming message item to determine data recipients. An audit tool determines the number of messages processed.

More specifically, as shown in FIG. 2, a message arrives into the application feed queue node 201 and is routed to a Flow Order 202 node by the TPF engine. The Flow Order 202 node regulates the message flow and routes the message to a CheckEWSType node 204.

As shown in FIG. 4, the check content type node 204 (CheckEWSType) determines the message type and routes the message to the appropriate node for its message type. For example, this message flow determines whether an XML input message is textual, numeric or metadata by checking for the corresponding tag. This is a commonly used flow across all message flows. Textual messages are recognized by the presence of <page> tag (482) and are routed for textual processing (484), for instance, to the Build Textual Data 210 node shown in FIG. 2. Price messages are recognized by the presence of the <num> tag (486) and are routed and processed according to a numeric flow. For instance, price messages may be checked for pricing errors (488). Similarly, metadata messages may be checked for metadata errors (490).

More specifically, the Check Pricing Errors node 208, shown in FIG. 2, checks the message for errors, missing mandatory information (Symbol, DataPoint, PermCode, DateTime, Date, Trans Attributes), and invalid permission codes. It then processes the price point list to send the valid entries and propagate the message to a node for building the price data.

A Build Price Data node 212 builds the individual messages for each partner based on the permission code and the subscription details in the Permissions table. If there is no vendor subscribing to this category the message is sent to a NOSUBSCRIPTION queue 228. The node transforms the date format and trans code (to New from Resend for the Future price assessments that are resent the next day) and sends the message to the Vendor Destination node 216, which in turn routes it the appropriate partner queue(s) depending on the permission file. The message will be sent to an error queue if there are no price point elements.

The Build Textual Data node 210 validates the tags in the message and builds the individual textual messages for each partner based on the permission code and the subscription details in a Permissions table. If there is no vendor subscribing to this category the message is sent to a NOSUBSCRIPTION queue 228. If there are vendors subscribing to this category, then node 210 transforms the date format, and appends tags such as service type, service code etc. Exemplary tags according to an aspect of the present invention, including path, description, and applicable rules, are provided in Table 3. The node 210 then builds the individual vendor specific message and then propagates it to the Vendor Destination node 216.

A Process MetaData node 214 builds a metadata message, when appropriate, for each partner in a similar fashion to the Build Price Data node and sends the message to the Vendor Destination node 216.

The Vendor Destination node 216 routes the message to the appropriate physical queue. An exemplary high-level architecture according to an embodiment of the present invention, including vendors, is shown in FIG. 3. This high-level architecture shows a textual and price data generation system in communication with at least one TPF, which is in communication with at least one of a plurality of vendors. If a queue exists, and there are no errors or exceptions to prevent or otherwise interfere with delivery, the Vendor Destination node 216 routes the output message to the Populate Env Fields node 218. Otherwise the message is sent to the Populate Env Fields On Error node 220. The Populate Env Fields node 218 prepares the message for auditing. For example, node 218 may set environment variables for auditing purposes. The Populate Env Fields On Error node 220 verifies exceptions and errors to the partner queue and populates the necessary environment fields to send the message to error processing.

As shown in FIG. 5, an error handling node 222 may be used for exception handling and error reporting. For example, this message flow may be configured to receive an error, build an error message, log it to a file for reference, and determine whether to send an email or not based on the log level. According to embodiments of the present invention, this is a flow that can be used across all the message flows. The Build Error Message node 501 forms the error message and logs it. The error message may specify in a text/XML file whether it is an unknown exception or another exception and may specify the timestamp, message id, and the content of the error message. The Log To File node 503 logs the error message and propagates this message to the Send Email node 505. Depending on the error flag, the Send Email node 505 either logs the message to a Failed-to-send-Mails log 507, or unsent email queue 509, or sends it for email output. The Email Output node 511 sends the email to the designated email address via the assigned mail server. Failures and exceptions may be logged, as well as the reason for, or details regarding, any failures in mailerror.log 513.

As shown in FIG. 6, a Load Permission File Flow may be used to load the permission codes from a fulfillment system into a permissions database 858. The file received is parsed and the details are uploaded into the database table. The unique design of the TPF rule engine 101 allows real-time application of business rules and business changes. For instance, this message flow architecture allows the system to maintain subscription details in real time by processing the permission file 857, as designed by the fulfillment system. For example, the Load Permission File message flow may process the permission file 857 in real time whenever there is a change in the incoming permission file 857 by processing the details and updating the permission database 858.

As shown in FIG. 7, a Perfmon Results Flow may be used to record performance statistics of the delivery system. Performance statistics may include, for example, time to delivery for a vendor or the difference in delivery times between vendors. The audit flow may include checking for a performance flag or other indication of performance. After the audit flow, each message is sent to a performance monitoring queue. If performance monitoring is turned on, the results are built and logged.

As shown in FIG. 8, a Send to Audit Flow 226 is used to log the audit results. After processing for partner transmission, the message is received by the Build Audit Message node 801, which builds the message needed for audit logging and sends it to the audit log queue 803. Auditing is turned on by sending the XML messages to ISO and application audit logging utilities. This change can be logged in the audit log as well by using the Log Logger Level node 805.

As shown in FIG. 9, in an audit data log flow, once the message reaches the Audit Log queue 803, it is logged and propagated to the Performance Monitoring queue 805 to record performance details. If there are any errors, an error message can be saved.

An exemplary Messaging Structure according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG. 10. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the system uses the custom, simplified XML tag set shown in FIG. 10 to deliver real-time textual and numeric content directly to a plurality of subscribers. This XML tag set specifies all of the information needed to package, process, and distribute real time content messages and includes an advanced tagging structure that allows granular content customization and flexibility.

In this example, the root element of the XML data is the <message> tag. This contains four of six possible child elements: the first, second and third tags—<sendTo>, <sendDt> and <service>—are required in all messages. The fourth tag is either <num> OR <page> OR <metaData>. All real-time messages take one of the following forms:

Numeric Message Form

<message>   <sendTo> ... </sendTo>   <sendDt> ... </sendDt>   <service> ... </service>   <num> ... </num> </message>

Page Message Form

<message>   <sendTo> ... </sendTo>   <sendDt> ... </sendDt>   <service> ... </service>   <page> ... </page> </message>

Metadata Message Form

<message>   <sendTo> ... </sendTo>   <sendDt> ... </sendDt>   <service> ... </service>   <metaData> ... </metaData> </message>

An XML Tag Element Hierarchy diagram 120 that includes the <message> tag and its children is independently shown in FIG. 11. FIG. 11 shows only those tags that are common to all messages, according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 12 is an XML Tag Element Hierarchy Diagram 122 illustrating the parent-child relationship of the XML <page> tag used for textual news stories. The <page> tag is not used for numeric or formatted data.

In FIG. 13 is an XML Tag Element Hierarchy Diagram 124 illustrating the parent-child relationship of the XML <num> tag used for both News & Pricing and Analytics data through both the <num> and <dataPoint> tags. These messages are similar, except that the Analytics data may include additional attributes.

In FIG. 14 is an XML Tag Element Hierarchy Diagram 126 illustrating the parent-child relationship of the XML <metadata> tag used for news and pricing metadata.

Business Rules

Textual business rules support the distribution of news, market commentary, transactions, and proprietary assessment and fundamentals tables pertinent to each defined market. These rules may be directed to determining message date and time characteristics, distributing a periodic “Heartbeat” page, setting standard textual page characteristics, including required and optional tags for Textual Pages, assigning unique page identification tags, implementing processing rules such as transmission or storage rules, implementing display rules, providing delete/overwrite instructions, and/or topic and company codes.

Table 1 includes a listing of exemplary business rules that may be applied by the TPF rule engine for processing textual messages associated with a data feed, such as a real-time XML feed in accordance with the present invention.

Download full PDF for full patent description/claims.




You can also Monitor Keywords and Search for tracking patents relating to this System and method using a simplified xml format for real-time content publication patent application.

Patent Applications in related categories:

20130124631 - Apparatus, system, and method for digital communications driven by behavior profiles of participants - An apparatus and system are described for enhancing digital communications using behavior profiles of participants, including: a collaboration engine having a behavioral profile knowledge base, the collaboration engine being an internet cloud computing arrangement, in which the behavioral profile knowledge base includes behavioral profiles of at least two participants; a ...

20130124623 - Attention tracking in an online conference - Attention tracking information is received. A function is applied to the attention tracking information to generate a value and a graphical representation of the value is displayed over a time period. ...

20130124625 - Determining a community page for a concept in a social networking system - Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social ...

20130124630 - Device and/or user identification - In accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention, an apparatus, a computer program product and a method is provided for device and/or user identification. The example embodiment comprises receiving, at an apparatus, a wireless signal comprising at least one of an address or an indication identifying a wireless ...

20130124629 - Dynamic identification of other users to an online user - Informing a user of a large scale network dynamically of other network users includes determining dynamically an online context of the user. Other users presently within the online context of the user are identified and trait information is stored that is related essentially only to the user or to the ...

20130124634 - Dynamic playbook: experimentation platform for social networks - Embodiments are directed towards dynamically managing contextual recommendations that can be employed with content when provided to a channel. A test for a variable having at least two outcomes may be determined to be employed with selected content. Each outcome may correspond to a different contextual recommendation. An outcome to ...

20130124636 - Dynamically providing a feed of stories about a user of a social networking system - To display a news feed in a social network environment, a social networking system generates news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment. The social networking system may also attach an informational link associated with at least one of the activities to at least one ...

20130124624 - Enabling preference portability for users of a social networking system - Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users using the metapages ...

20130124633 - Engine, system and method of providing location-based social services - An engine, system and method for a domain social network that interconnects Internet users with at least domains owned by or of interest to those Internet users, and that may obtain and/or forward obtained dynamic data regarding those domains automatically, such as by web service or email service. The dynamic ...

20130124628 - Method and apparatus for providing social network based advertising with user control and privacy - Methods for providing targeted content are disclosed. For example, the method registers a user profile with a social network and provides a user identifier associated with the user profile to a user device. The method then receives a request from a third party with the user identifier. The method determines ...

20130124635 - Notification systems and methods that consider traffic flow predicament data - Systems and methods are disclosed for automated notification systems. One representative method, among others, comprises the following steps: monitoring travel data associated with a mobile thing (MT); scheduling a notification communication; analyzing traffic flow predicament data associated with a travel plan of the MT; and rescheduling the notification communication, based ...

20130124627 - Providing universal social context for concepts in a social networking system - Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social ...

20130124626 - Searching topics by highest ranked page in a social networking system - Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social ...

20130124632 - Terminal device, information processing method, program, and storage medium - A terminal device includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire time information and position information, and a generation unit configured to generate an action identification based on acquired pieces of the time information and acquired pieces of the position information. ...


###


Other recent patent applications listed under the agent The Mcgraw-hill Companies, Inc.: